The present invention relates to a television receiver having a function of reserving and receiving a serialized TV program to be broadcast over several times.
Among TV programs, serialized dramas enjoy popularity, attracting a large audience. As a serialized drama has continuity of a story as its important factor, it is a great value of the program that the audience should not miss it. To keep watching a serialized drama, generally a viewer has to remember a day of the week, time, and channel of the program, and operates a television receiver at the predetermined time to watch the program. However, being busy with housework or the like, the viewer possibly misses the drama.
In order to deal with such program, a conventional television receiver utilizes a method of reserving reception of a program by using an electronic program table which is transmitted along with the program from a broadcast station (Japanese Published Patent Application No. Hei. 5-22673).
FIG. 7 is a block diagram illustrating a conventional television receiver 200.
The television receiver comprises a reception section 21 for receiving a program and a program table, a display section 22 for displaying the program and the program table, a program reservation memory 23 for storing the title of a reserved program, and a timer control section 24 for detecting the start time of the reserved program, and controlling the reception section 21 and the display section 22 to start reception.
Hereinafter, the operation of the television receiver 200 will be described.
The reception section 21 receives a program and a program table, and the display section 22 displays the program and the program table. The user selects a program to be reserved from the program table, and the program reservation memory 23 stores the tile of the reserved program. The timer control section 24 search the program table for the start time of the reserved program, and controls the reception section 21 and the display section 22 to start receiving when a built-in clock indicates the start time of the reserved program.
In this way, the conventional television receiver 200 is characterized by that a reservation is made not according to time but according to a program and, therefore, even when the broadcast time of the program is changed, the program table supplied from the broadcast station is altered, and the reception start time is automatically altered according to the program table. By utilizing this function, reception of a predetermined channel is automatically started at the start time of the reserved program, and the user is prevented from forgetting about turning on power to the television or tuning the channel.
However, when the user actually misses a program, he/she doesn""t remember the existence of the program. So, even when the broadcast of the program reserved by the user is started automatically by the automatic reception function, the user cannot prepare to watch it in many cases. Further, since many serialized dramas are broadcast at 1-week intervals, the user may forget the story of the program even though he/she remembers the existence of the program. Especially, since a serialized drama starts taking up the last scene of the previous story, the user cannot keep up with the story if he/she doesn""t remember the last part of the previous story, and the user""s pleasure in watching the drama is considerably spoiled. Although recording the program every time in a VTR helps the user to remember how the story goes by playing back the last part of the previous story, it takes much trouble with the operation of exchanging, rewinding, and playing back the tape. So, if the previous story is played back just before the drama starts, it may make inroads into the broadcast time of the main drama.
The present invention is made to solve the above-described problems, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a television receiver for reserving and receiving a serialized program a user watches every time, which receiver records the last part of the program and plays it back just before the next broadcast of the program by using a break time between programs, which is not related to the reserved program, whereby an advance notice of starting the broadcast of the reserved program is given to the user, and the user can watch the program having a grasp of the previous story and, therefore, the user can easily empathize with the program.
A television receiver according to the present invention (Claim 1) is a television receiver having a function of reserving and receiving a serialized TV program to be broadcast over several times, and this television receiver comprises reception means for receiving a program and a program table which are transmitted from a broadcast station; operation means for generating an operation signal for setting a reservation to receive a predetermined program, according to a predetermined operation; recording/playback means for recording and playing back the received program; program information/receiving time detection means for detecting program information for specifying the predetermined program received by a user, and the receiving time of the predetermined program, on the basis of the operation signal and the program table; display means for displaying the output from the reception means, the recording/playback means, or the program information/receiving time detection means; schedule creation means for creating an operation schedule for reception, recording, and playback of the predetermined program, on the basis of the detected program information and recording time of the predetermined program, and the program table; and control means for controlling the reception means, the recording/playback means, and the display means on the basis of the operation schedule. In this television receiver, when the predetermined program on which a reservation for reception has been set is broadcast, the last part of the broadcast is recorded, and the recorded part of the broadcast is played back just before the next broadcast of the predetermined program is started.
In the television receiver according to this invention (Claim 1), the schedule creation means creates the operation schedule on the basis of the receiving time detected by the program information/receiving time detection means, and the control means controls reception, recording, and playback, whereby the last part of the reserved program is recorded and the recorded part is played back just before the next broadcast of the program starts. This playback of the recorded part becomes advance notice of starting reception of the reserved program, which reminds the user that he/she has reserved the predetermined program, so that the user can prepare to watch the program by the broadcast start time.
A television receiver according to the invention (Claim 2) is a television receiver as described in Claim 1, wherein the program information/receiving time detection means comprises program table storage means for storing the program table received by the reception means; time notification means for notifying the present time; analysis means for analyzing the reception history on the basis of the output from the control means, the program table stored in the program table storage means, and the present time from the time notification means; and program specifying information creation means for outputting the program information for specifying the predetermined program on which a reservation for reception has been set, on the basis of the reception history, the program table stored in the program table storage means, and the output from the operation means.
In the television receiver according to the invention (Claim 2), the program information/receiving time detection means detects the receiving time on the basis of the broadcast start time and the reception end time which are obtained from the program table and the reception history, and the receiving time so detected can be used as the time during which the predetermined program is actually broadcast, when creating the schedule. Therefore, the user can reserve the program to receive only the real broadcast time of the program excluding a period having no relation to the program, such as a commercial break.
A television receiver according to the invention (Claim 3) is a television receiver as described in Claim 2, wherein the analysis means obtains the broadcast time of each program by analyzing the program table, and obtains the receiving time of each program on the basis of the present time and the output from the operation means, and outputs the program information corresponding to a program whose ratio of the receiving time to the broadcast time exceeds a predetermined threshold value, as received program information of a program which has been watched by the user; and the program specifying information creation means obtains the information of the predetermined program on which a reservation for reception has been set, from the program table, on the basis of the output from the operation means, and receives the received program information as the reception history on the basis of the information of the predetermined program, and outputs the following information relating to the predetermined program: a break time between the actual broadcast end time and the broadcast end time shown in the program table, the real broadcast time from the broadcast start time to the actual broadcast end time, the title, and the channel.
In the television receiver according to the invention (Claim 3), the analysis means automatically decides whether the user has watched the predetermined program or not on the basis of the ratio of the receiving time to the broadcast time, and outputs the received program information of the program which is decided as having been watched by the user. Therefore, when the user reserves reception of the predetermined program, he/she is saved the trouble of setting the playback start time and the recording start time, that is, the reservation to receive the program is automatically set using the received program information.
A television receiver according to the invention (Claim 4) is a television receiver as described in Claim 3, wherein the schedule creation means sets the recording start time at which recording of the on-air program is started, on the basis of the break time between the actual broadcast end time and the broadcast end time shown in the program table, the real broadcast time from the broadcast start time to the actual broadcast end time, and the broadcast start time, and sets the end time of this recording to the actual broadcast end time of the program.
In the television receiver according to the invention (Claim 4), since the schedule creation means sets the recording start time and the recording end time, excluding a period having no relation to the program such as a commercial break, only the last part of the broadcast of the program can be recorded.
A television receiver according to the invention (Claim 5) is a television receiver as described in Claim 3, wherein the schedule creation means sets the playback start time at which playback of the recorded program is started, on the basis of the break time between the actual broadcast end time and the broadcast end time shown in the program table, and the broadcast start time.
In the television receiver according to the invention (Claim 5), since the schedule creation means creates the schedule such that the recorded program is played back utilizing a break time just before the broadcast start time of the reserved program, the user can grasp the story of the previous broadcast of the program without being prevented from watching another program.